Rajkumar Hirani

Hirani was born on 20 November 1962 in Nagpur to a Sindhi family. His ancestors originally belong to Mehrabpur, a city now in the Naushahro Firoz District, Sindh, of Pakistan.[8] His father Suresh Hirani ran a typing institute in Nagpur. Hirani studied at St. Francis De'Sales High School, Nagpur, Maharashtra. He did his graduation in commerce. His parents wanted him to be an engineer, but he was more keen on theatre and film.[9]

In his college days, he was involved with Hindi theatre. He had many friends in Nagpur's medical college and hence, spent much time in theatre at the college. Suresh had his son's photographs taken and sent him to an acting school in Mumbai. However, Hirani could not fit in and returned to Nagpur after three days. His father then asked him to apply to the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune, but the acting course had shut down and his chances of admission to the directorial course looked slim as there were far too many applicants.[10] Hirani opted for the film editing course, and earned a scholarship.[11]

Hirani in 2012

Hirani's films are often based on themes which explore particularly different critical social issue like middle class aspirations, reforming, standing up for themselves, fighting for the right thing, relationships among family but with healthy humour and full of emotional quotient. Hirani is editor of all of his films, he himself admitted he enjoys editing film more than anything else.[18] Rajeev Masand said "Like those good old-fashioned Hrishikesh Mukherjee films, Hirani's film reinforced importance of human goodness and basic niceties.[19] Hirani has been cited one of his most favourite film, Mukherjee's Anand (1971). Munna Bhai MBBS deals with corruption of hospital and cruelty of doctors, Lage Raho Munna Bhai deals with Gandhi's thinking and reforming people with soft hearted, 3 Idiots with education system, pressure on students for marks and passion of individuals, PK with religion and superstition and Sanju on relationships and media outrage.[20] Film critic Komal Nahta called Rajkumar Hirani a magician more than a director during reviewing Sanju. He added," He narrates the complex story of a misdirected, ignorant and foolish young man with such sensitivity that the human drama becomes quite a masterpiece of a film."[21]

All of Hirani's films were co-produced by Vinod Chopra Films till Sanju, after which they broke their ties owing to creative differences.[22] He had one of Chopra's films Mission Kashmir professionally. Hirani has worked consistently with writer Abhijat Joshi since Lage Raho Munna Bhai. Hirani has often cast the same actors in his projects, particularly Sanjay Dutt, who has collaborated with Hirani on three feature films and one film which itself is based on Dutt. Aamir Khan has done two path breaking films with Hirani. Boman Irani has been there in all of Hirani's films in pivotal supporting roles.

Hirani is considered a pioneer of his own cinema style. He has garnered the appraisal by several industry's successful makers and his contemporaries like Karan Johar who said,

I've been pitted against everyone and I feel envious, not jealous. I am envious of Rajkumar Hirani. I've never managed to do what he does. His movies have genius ideas. I don't have the ability perhaps. I would love to make those kinds of movies. He has strong screenplays. I hope I get such screenplays. [23]

Director Anurag Kashyap called him bravest filmmakers, he added: Generally, we filmmakers get into our subject to prove its poignancy so much that we end up making it less effective for audience. But Raju didn't do that.[24]

SS Rajamouli said during the promotion of Baahubali: The Beginning that he is a huge fan of Hirani's films and that he cannot make one scene the way Hirani does.[25]

Screenwriter Javed Akhtar praised Hirani's work saying,

"I am a huge admirer of Rajkumar Hirani. He does really good work and now again, he has done an amazing job. I always say one thing about him, that to make such kind of films, you not only have to be a really good director or writer, you have to be really a good human being as well.[26]

Hirani married Manjeet Hirani, a pilot in Air India, in 1994. They have a son, Vir Hirani, who is also pursuing filmmaking.

He was further accused of being against godman and religion, he then added:

I am being asked about if I am against religious gurus or godmen, why have I expressed gratitude to Sri Sri Ravi Shankar in the film's opening credits?. My answer is that I am not against religious gurus or godmen, I am only against the fake ones.[29]

On 13th January 2019, Huffington post India published a story about the allegations made by the women against Hirani. He allegedly first made a sexually suggestive remark and assaulted the woman in his home-office who worked with him on the crew of Sanju.Rajkumar Hirani allegedly sexually abused the woman during the six month period of April to September 2018. Hirani denied the claims calling them " false, malicious and mischievous ".[30]

Editor only

• The Eight Column Fair (1987) (Short Film)
• Jab Pyar Kiya to Darna Kya (1991)
• Jazbaat (1994)
• Mission Kashmir (2000)

Creative producer only

• Parineeta (2005)
• Eklavya: The Royal Guard (2007)

The budgets and box-office figures are all estimates collated from various sources with reputed film portals. All values in Indian Rupees (₹) are converted to US Dollars ($) based on the average yearly exchange rate data from World Bank.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rajkumar Hirani.

• Rajkumar Hirani at IMDb
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